Wonderful historical context and analysis, however, for the simple form: too many humans are using too many natural resources and producing too much pollution, in ever growing status hierarchies. What could go wrong? Everything? The ever increasing surplus heat energy this fossil fuel burning civilization is producing is accumulating, in our 1.2 trillion tons of melting global ice annually (3.3 B/day), in the ever hotter 321 M cubic miles of oceans, in the 1 T tons of evaporating water vapor rising from the surface daily, and in the accumulating average global surface heat: 0.2 degC annually, heading toward an unlivable 6 degC by 2047, 22yrs. hence.
Apart from the availability of fossil fuels, there's nothing wrong with the world that the next 100,000 year Ice Age won't fix...The human population will diminish by 99% and start over, ultimately creating new civilizations...
There are plenty of recent Youtube videos by its author Valentina Zharkova.
In a nutshell, it very much appears the Sun cycles in predictable patterns, and we are heading into a Maunder minimum. During these "down" times, the Sun sends out 17% less heat than normal, and that rebuilds ice sheets and drastically shortens growing seasons. This could be another vector for starvation, and will last 22 years before the temperatures we are used to return.
Could this be true? The counter argument is that Human Caused Global Warming is too far advanced for this moment in time to have an affect. Zharkova addresses that, and provides a pretty good argument against it. She provides compelling evidence for the world getting very much colder by 2031, with a path to it in progress.
As far as I can tell, this is the primary argument against this mini ice age from occurring. I find this very strange, because its almost like we have capitulated to an inevitable outcome, when we have no idea what the effect will be.
Zharkova addresses this argument. If she is correct, then we need to get cracking on getting ready for this event. And if she is not, then I guess nothing changes anyway.
It’s happened at least twice before, 73.5 kya and 44 kya, as the result of volcanic erruptions and our ancestors were wittled down to as few as 2,000 inbreeding fellows, which is why ALL humans living today share 99.6 (99.9?) percent of the same genome. Each of us only varies by 40 genes out of 40,000.
These Oligarchs, like global warmist and depopulationist Bill Gates with his 4 private jets, are burning down the civilization they inherited...and have done so many times before...Latest being the British Lords(including Churchill) who started WW1 without even a vote in the cabinet, which killed off their best young men and bankrupted England, which had been the richest country in the world...
Economists like to talk about the ratio of debt to GDP, which can remain stable for decades if the economy is growing as fast as debt. But when the economy shrinks continuously, as it will soon do, the relative magnitude of existing debt will rise dramatically. Even with zero or negative interest rates, the debt burden just keeps on increasing until there is nothing left but default.
Since fiat money systems are based on the issuance of credit, widespread credit freezes and debt default will create a financial apocalypse, destroying the entire monetary system. This financial crisis will mean that markets will no longer function since, without money, they will lack a way to self-organize. Everything will shut down.
Without money, the only way to operate an economy will be by command. Some entity will have to tell everyone what to do to keep agriculture, industry and energy systems going. Since there is no Plan B for operating a command economy in any industrial country (if it can even be done), a financial crisis could just shut things down forever.
We have to identify the enablers of this wealth extraction and reallocation to the rentier oligarchs.
The telephone/telegraph, radio, and now the internet have allowed instantaneous massive transfers of wealth through the financial markets. Milliseconds, not carting gold by stagecoach from bank to bank one step ahead of the regulators to be sure each bank has adequate reserves.
We need to analyze the rate and amount of wealth discrepancy that occurred before these modern exchanges and extrapolate what will happen. Of course, the big unanswered question is exactly when?
I still think the greatest enabler of wealth discrepancy has been the creation of the fractional reserve- debt based monetary system which started with the gold merchants in Venice hundreds of years ago and was then followed up in a one-two punch by the Rothschild banking system. The advent of fossil fuels, industrialization, interconnected complexity that has elevated population and dependency to unprecedented historical levels means that the eventual downfall will be much more violent than in the past. This eventuality could be obscured in an expanding economy, but when the financial, ecological, energy, and resource drought descends upon us we will be in for a rude awakening from our smug “normalcy bias.”
Essentially, the system snowballs as the rentiers are able to focus solely on extracting wealth instead of doing any useful productive work, while the productive middle class is preoccupied with growing the food, mining, manufacturing, building so that they cannot defend their work product from those who are stealing from them. The productive people are providing the food, shelter, transportation, energy, waste removal and other essential services that free up the oligarchs to focus on stealing from their benefactors. Talk about the scorpion and the frog!
It’s what I call the “Parasitic Pyramid.” The base of the pyramid is comprised of voters who have been bought by the politicians by a promise of “free shit” in exchange for their vote. Politicians can pay for these promises in a fiat debt based system by issuance of US Treasury debt that will rug pull future generations through inflation. Now that they are dependent as well as useless, they will never willingly give up their parasitic ways. Higher up the pyramid are the useless financial planners, lawyers, real estate agents, who offer no useful skills or services and produce nothing of value. At the top are the corporate elites and bankers who have gained control of the lackey politicians who write laws that favor the elites. This is the classic definition of fascism: the duopoly of corporate and political control, now more recently referred to as simply the corporatocracy.
The Cantillon effect allows the rentiers/oligarchs to get low interest fiat currency first to acquire assets. By the time the rest of the people see this currency, it has been stepped on by inflation, and leads to even more reliance on debt to make ends meet. This plays into the strategy of the Bankers. A debt based system of wealth extraction.
The EU is in dire straits because they have unleashed the European Central Bank (ECB) which is beholden to no one. It is a pure definition of a rogue agency. Looking at the US, the FED at least is supposedly controlled by Congress. Even still, it tries to deceive and manipulate to gain the independence and secrecy enjoyed by the ECB. John Titus spells this out in his You Tube channel “Best Evidence.” Bankocracy part 3 The FED Independence Lie.
Friend ... MD level banker ... visited last year... he told me he was getting offers of unsecured loans from a bank at less than 1% interest... max USD300k... he took the loan and bought crypto...
Another friend some years ago ... mentioned Citi offered him USD1M at around 0.3% interest... he would be a very high nett worth individual
I suppose this is about keeping the economy moving but without a doubt -- we can see how the rich become richer... my plumber was not offered low interest loans...
This entry is particularly excellent. Lots of dots connected, and infers an inevitable outcome. Either a Jubilee or a Reverse Jubilee will happen at some point.
David Webb illustrates the latter in his 50 page (and free to download) book, "The Great Taking". Essentially, what has occurred is that clearing houses now hold all assets with beneficial creditors having claims to them. The theory is that in order to clear all debts at once, those claims will simply be severed.
Humankind, in effect, made the collective decision to turn our planet into cash.
It was we who made the decision to tear it apart and buy and sell every resource that our earth provided for free, in our support.
The planet itself became property---someone owned it, and as such was entitled tobenefit from that ownership....first gold, silver and base metals, but that was limited by primitive technology.
But then we learned how to use colossal amounts of fossil fuel....that allowed the use of iron because iron became cheap.....everyone could own iron objects.
Weapons became cheap, so warfare became industrialised.
We had wars of the factories---soldiers were slaughtered in millions rather than thousands.
Iron-driven travel spread diseases around the world, and killed tens of millions more.---But iron tools allowed the birth of even nore millions, to consume still more of what the planet gave us.
Which is why we are in our current condition of collapse.
I first came across the term "rentier class" in the 1999 book THE URBAN GROWTH MACHINE, edited by Andrew E.G. Jonas and David Wilson and with a concluding essay by Harvey Molotch. Man, those guys back in the 70's 80's and 90's really nailed it. (Yes, the rentier class rules hands-down as long as there is GROWTH.) But since 2000, academicians worldwide have fallen off the cliff in terms of intelligence.
U.K. even has a political party operating as a private limited company with one shareholder - Farage Fan Club. PFI and Public-Private Partnerships are what destroyed Yeltsin‘s Russia yet abound in „West“ run through offshore tax havens with absurdly George Soros owning U.K. HMRC real estate or Warren Buffett and Li Kai-Shing owning electric transmission networks in U.K.
People worry about money and finance instead of resources.
Bring out the pitchforks already. The reaction to the Luigi case proves people are itching for it.
Nothing like burning down your own nest. So why does it keep repeating?
Because humans are very short sighted, and dislike thinking about the long run....
Because Humanity suffer from a great disease "Amnesia"
Wonderful historical context and analysis, however, for the simple form: too many humans are using too many natural resources and producing too much pollution, in ever growing status hierarchies. What could go wrong? Everything? The ever increasing surplus heat energy this fossil fuel burning civilization is producing is accumulating, in our 1.2 trillion tons of melting global ice annually (3.3 B/day), in the ever hotter 321 M cubic miles of oceans, in the 1 T tons of evaporating water vapor rising from the surface daily, and in the accumulating average global surface heat: 0.2 degC annually, heading toward an unlivable 6 degC by 2047, 22yrs. hence.
Apart from the availability of fossil fuels, there's nothing wrong with the world that the next 100,000 year Ice Age won't fix...The human population will diminish by 99% and start over, ultimately creating new civilizations...
Those new civilizations are going to have a hard time finding useful metals...
How about a quick mini ice age?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150709092955.htm
There are plenty of recent Youtube videos by its author Valentina Zharkova.
In a nutshell, it very much appears the Sun cycles in predictable patterns, and we are heading into a Maunder minimum. During these "down" times, the Sun sends out 17% less heat than normal, and that rebuilds ice sheets and drastically shortens growing seasons. This could be another vector for starvation, and will last 22 years before the temperatures we are used to return.
Could this be true? The counter argument is that Human Caused Global Warming is too far advanced for this moment in time to have an affect. Zharkova addresses that, and provides a pretty good argument against it. She provides compelling evidence for the world getting very much colder by 2031, with a path to it in progress.
I think given the high carbon in our atmosphere, this effect may be blunted. Regardless, we are on for some tumult in our once stable climate.
As far as I can tell, this is the primary argument against this mini ice age from occurring. I find this very strange, because its almost like we have capitulated to an inevitable outcome, when we have no idea what the effect will be.
Zharkova addresses this argument. If she is correct, then we need to get cracking on getting ready for this event. And if she is not, then I guess nothing changes anyway.
"The human population will diminish by 99% and start over…"
Unless, of course, it diminishes 100%.
If it goes down 99%, what are the chances it will or won't go down an additional 1%?
I wouldn't bet against those odds!
It’s happened at least twice before, 73.5 kya and 44 kya, as the result of volcanic erruptions and our ancestors were wittled down to as few as 2,000 inbreeding fellows, which is why ALL humans living today share 99.6 (99.9?) percent of the same genome. Each of us only varies by 40 genes out of 40,000.
"economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy"
In other news: 'Bears Defecate In Woods' 'Pope Is Catholic' etc etc
These Oligarchs, like global warmist and depopulationist Bill Gates with his 4 private jets, are burning down the civilization they inherited...and have done so many times before...Latest being the British Lords(including Churchill) who started WW1 without even a vote in the cabinet, which killed off their best young men and bankrupted England, which had been the richest country in the world...
Economists like to talk about the ratio of debt to GDP, which can remain stable for decades if the economy is growing as fast as debt. But when the economy shrinks continuously, as it will soon do, the relative magnitude of existing debt will rise dramatically. Even with zero or negative interest rates, the debt burden just keeps on increasing until there is nothing left but default.
Since fiat money systems are based on the issuance of credit, widespread credit freezes and debt default will create a financial apocalypse, destroying the entire monetary system. This financial crisis will mean that markets will no longer function since, without money, they will lack a way to self-organize. Everything will shut down.
Without money, the only way to operate an economy will be by command. Some entity will have to tell everyone what to do to keep agriculture, industry and energy systems going. Since there is no Plan B for operating a command economy in any industrial country (if it can even be done), a financial crisis could just shut things down forever.
Prepare accordingly.
Exactly! I think I have also seen your wise comments on Surplus Energy Economics,
Learn to grow food! Don't wait until it's too late… it's a skill, not something you naturally acquire when you need it.
Better yet, join with others of like mind to acquire land and grow food. The days of the "rugged individualist" are over.
This is plan b https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/the-ultimate-extinction-plan-uep
We have to identify the enablers of this wealth extraction and reallocation to the rentier oligarchs.
The telephone/telegraph, radio, and now the internet have allowed instantaneous massive transfers of wealth through the financial markets. Milliseconds, not carting gold by stagecoach from bank to bank one step ahead of the regulators to be sure each bank has adequate reserves.
We need to analyze the rate and amount of wealth discrepancy that occurred before these modern exchanges and extrapolate what will happen. Of course, the big unanswered question is exactly when?
I still think the greatest enabler of wealth discrepancy has been the creation of the fractional reserve- debt based monetary system which started with the gold merchants in Venice hundreds of years ago and was then followed up in a one-two punch by the Rothschild banking system. The advent of fossil fuels, industrialization, interconnected complexity that has elevated population and dependency to unprecedented historical levels means that the eventual downfall will be much more violent than in the past. This eventuality could be obscured in an expanding economy, but when the financial, ecological, energy, and resource drought descends upon us we will be in for a rude awakening from our smug “normalcy bias.”
Essentially, the system snowballs as the rentiers are able to focus solely on extracting wealth instead of doing any useful productive work, while the productive middle class is preoccupied with growing the food, mining, manufacturing, building so that they cannot defend their work product from those who are stealing from them. The productive people are providing the food, shelter, transportation, energy, waste removal and other essential services that free up the oligarchs to focus on stealing from their benefactors. Talk about the scorpion and the frog!
It’s what I call the “Parasitic Pyramid.” The base of the pyramid is comprised of voters who have been bought by the politicians by a promise of “free shit” in exchange for their vote. Politicians can pay for these promises in a fiat debt based system by issuance of US Treasury debt that will rug pull future generations through inflation. Now that they are dependent as well as useless, they will never willingly give up their parasitic ways. Higher up the pyramid are the useless financial planners, lawyers, real estate agents, who offer no useful skills or services and produce nothing of value. At the top are the corporate elites and bankers who have gained control of the lackey politicians who write laws that favor the elites. This is the classic definition of fascism: the duopoly of corporate and political control, now more recently referred to as simply the corporatocracy.
The Cantillon effect allows the rentiers/oligarchs to get low interest fiat currency first to acquire assets. By the time the rest of the people see this currency, it has been stepped on by inflation, and leads to even more reliance on debt to make ends meet. This plays into the strategy of the Bankers. A debt based system of wealth extraction.
The EU is in dire straits because they have unleashed the European Central Bank (ECB) which is beholden to no one. It is a pure definition of a rogue agency. Looking at the US, the FED at least is supposedly controlled by Congress. Even still, it tries to deceive and manipulate to gain the independence and secrecy enjoyed by the ECB. John Titus spells this out in his You Tube channel “Best Evidence.” Bankocracy part 3 The FED Independence Lie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HZSwoHwOhg
Friend ... MD level banker ... visited last year... he told me he was getting offers of unsecured loans from a bank at less than 1% interest... max USD300k... he took the loan and bought crypto...
Another friend some years ago ... mentioned Citi offered him USD1M at around 0.3% interest... he would be a very high nett worth individual
I suppose this is about keeping the economy moving but without a doubt -- we can see how the rich become richer... my plumber was not offered low interest loans...
This entry is particularly excellent. Lots of dots connected, and infers an inevitable outcome. Either a Jubilee or a Reverse Jubilee will happen at some point.
David Webb illustrates the latter in his 50 page (and free to download) book, "The Great Taking". Essentially, what has occurred is that clearing houses now hold all assets with beneficial creditors having claims to them. The theory is that in order to clear all debts at once, those claims will simply be severed.
Edit: https://thegreattaking.com/
Note: Everything from stocks to property, is managed by the clearing / brokerage houses.
not possible https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/financial-system-supply-chain-cross
I read Hudson’s and Turchin’s books one after the other. They reach very similar conclusions from very different starting points.
There is so much history to learn from but it seems that our leadership has read exactly none of it.
And what about "The Creature from Jekyll Island" ?????
The London Review of Books has a wonderful review on the finance folly: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n17/john-lanchester/for-every-winner-a-loser
Humankind, in effect, made the collective decision to turn our planet into cash.
It was we who made the decision to tear it apart and buy and sell every resource that our earth provided for free, in our support.
The planet itself became property---someone owned it, and as such was entitled tobenefit from that ownership....first gold, silver and base metals, but that was limited by primitive technology.
But then we learned how to use colossal amounts of fossil fuel....that allowed the use of iron because iron became cheap.....everyone could own iron objects.
Weapons became cheap, so warfare became industrialised.
We had wars of the factories---soldiers were slaughtered in millions rather than thousands.
Iron-driven travel spread diseases around the world, and killed tens of millions more.---But iron tools allowed the birth of even nore millions, to consume still more of what the planet gave us.
Which is why we are in our current condition of collapse.
I love this piece B! Thank you!
I first came across the term "rentier class" in the 1999 book THE URBAN GROWTH MACHINE, edited by Andrew E.G. Jonas and David Wilson and with a concluding essay by Harvey Molotch. Man, those guys back in the 70's 80's and 90's really nailed it. (Yes, the rentier class rules hands-down as long as there is GROWTH.) But since 2000, academicians worldwide have fallen off the cliff in terms of intelligence.
Should read David Ricardo and his works then
U.K. even has a political party operating as a private limited company with one shareholder - Farage Fan Club. PFI and Public-Private Partnerships are what destroyed Yeltsin‘s Russia yet abound in „West“ run through offshore tax havens with absurdly George Soros owning U.K. HMRC real estate or Warren Buffett and Li Kai-Shing owning electric transmission networks in U.K.
I Love your posts, keep it up!